Is Newt Gingrich helping or hurting Mitt Romney?

Newt Gingrich in the wake of two losses in deep South States is seeking a justification for remaining in the race. When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a "Southern Candidate" Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race.

His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a "tag team" that is denying Romney the nomination. Gingrich argues that should he leave the race, his supporters will split between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney and that Romney will turn all of his considerable resources on defeating his remaining foe-Santorum.

The second argument is fatuous. Campaign ads have not been running against Gingrich for some weeks, at least not in any number. The vast majority of its fire has been on Senator Santorum already and will remain so, particularly as Gingrich is no longer a serious threat.

The first argument is worthy of some consideration. The idea that the presence of two conservatives in the race has hurt Romney's progress is at least mathematically accurate. One can't take Newt Gingrich's total support and added it to Rick Santorum. Without Gingrich in the race, some of Gingrich's support would go to Romney. One poll showed with Gingrich gone, 56% of his supporters would go to Santorum, 27% to Romney and 16% to Ron Paul. Nate Silver of the New York Times did an analysis on this basis that showed that while Santorum would have won Ohio and Alaska without Gingrich in the race, Romney would have netted more delegates because most of the contests up until now have proportionally allocated their delegates.

However, in Alabama and Mississippi, this may not have been the case. Both states allocated congressional districts and an at-large delegation proportionally. With 56% of Gingrich supporters going to Santorum, Santorum would have won Alabama 51-36%, and Mississippi at 50.2%-39%. Santorum would have captured all the at-large Delegates for both Alabama and Mississippi as well as won a majority in most of the eleven congressional districts in the two states, leaving Romney with perhaps as few as six to twelve delegates as opposed to the twenty-three he won through Gingrich's presence which left the winner with less than a majority.

Looking down the road, there are even more states that are either winner take all by Congressional District or winner take all by state. In addition, Nebraska and Montana will elect their delegates at their June State Conventions, so their primaries are non-binding. However, any chance that Santorum will have of getting delegates in these states will be greatly enhanced by winning the primaries. So, Gingrich splitting the vote isn't going to help.

Of course those states that have proportional allocation with a relatively low threshold to obtain delegates that allow Gingrich to theoretically help stop Romney by winning voters who would have otherwise supported the former Massachusetts Governor. On the other hand, those that are winner take-all by Congressional District or proportional with a threshold above 15% are likely to have Gingrich advancing the cause of Mitt Romney by splitting the conservative vote and allowing Romney to win a plurality.

Gingrich's Presence Will Help Romney
Illinois
Louisiana (Proportional-25% threshold)
Wisconsin
Maryland
Delaware
Pennsylvania
Indiana
West Virginia
Nebraska
Arkansas (Proportional, but if a candidate wins a majority, they get all delegates.)
California
New Jersey
Montana
South Dakota (Proportional-20% threshold)

Gingrich's Presence Will Likely Help Romney
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
Kentucky
New Mexico

In fourteen states including California, the presence of Newt Gingrich will help Mitt Romney pick up delegates either by stopping Santorum from winning a majority of the vote (in Arkansas), enabling Romney to win either statewide or in congressional districts, by taking votes from Santorum in proportional contests where Gingrich is unlikely to reach the high delegate thresholds.

In three other states, the pure proportional nature of the contests and lack of thresholds means that Gingrich is marginally hurting Romney by filching a few delegates that would have gone to the former Massachusetts Governor. If we assume 12% for Gingrich in Oregon and Oregon and 20% in both Texas and North Carolina, that would give Gingrich forty-four delegates, of which twelve would have gone to Romney otherwise.

The five other states are somewhat harder to call. While Rhode Island and New Mexico divide their delegates proportionally at fifteen percent of the vote, results in other contests in these regions suggest Gingrich is unlikely to meet the threshold given the momentum in the race, so his presence is most likely to only reduce Santorum's delegate haul rather than generate any of his own.

Connecticut and New York are dicier. Both states offer some delegates as winner take-all by Congressional District. The remaining delegates (ten in Connecticut and thirty-four in New York) are awarded to the winner of the state if he wins a majority. If no one wins a majority, the delegates will be split proportionally among all candidates winning 20% of the vote or more. Romney is expected to win both states. However, Gingrich's presence could cost Santorum districts in upstate New York. In addition, if Romney finishes solidly under 50% in both states, Gingrich would cost Santorum at-large delegates.

There is one scenario under which Gingrich's presence could hurt Romney slightly. If due to a Gingrich split, Romney wins in New York, but not with a majority (say with 48% and Gingrich wins 10%), Gingrich could help Romney win a Congressional District or two in upstate New York while at the same time he could hold Romney under 50%, allowing Santorum to pick up slightly more at-large delegates in one or both states.

Kentucky is also complicated. The state awards eighteen delegates winner-take-all by Congressional District and Gingrich's presence could help Romney by splitting the conservative vote. On the other hand, it awards twenty-four statewide delegates proportionally with a fifteen percent threshold that Gingrich would probably still be able to get to. However, Gingrich would be unlikely to win enough proportional delegates that Romney would have otherwise won to make up for throwing even one Congressional District to Romney.

The math is simply against Newt Gingrich having a positive impact in terms of stopping Mitt Romney. Overall, Gingrich is now Romney's best friend in this race.

However, the race is more than math. There is psychology and how voters and activists feel about the race. More victories and wider margins make conservatives feel more confident that Romney can be stopped. Santorum won three of ten states on Super Tuesday, a majority of the vote in Kansas, and single digit wins in Mississippi and Alabama. Without Gingrich, Santorum would have won five of ten states on Super Tuesday to Romney's four, a super majority in Kansas, and won both Alabama and Mississippi outright by double digit margins over Mitt Romney. This situation may not have changed delegate math much, but it would have increased conservative sentiment that Mitt Romney wasn't so electable after all and that he could be beaten.

Conservatives can win in fight for someone under one banner, rather than working under multiple banners and attempting to be too cute by half in playing strategy games.

The results are clear, as is the way forward. If conservatives want to nominate an alternative to Romney, their only hope is to unite behind Rick Santorum.

The article is extremely important and 100% right based on my own analysis of the winner-take-all rules in upcoming states. This analysis is far better than mine and I endorse it wholeheartedly. They went into far more detail than I've had time to look into involving the threshold and mixed rule states, and came up with the same conclusion. That is that we have a far better chance of stopping Mitt if Newt officially suspends his campaign and endorses Rick. I say that as a longtime Newt supporter who donated money to him and to no other candidates in this primary. I feel that Mitt as the nominee would leave us with the untenable choice between voting for Mitt and destroying the last vestiges of the conservative GOP as we know it, perhaps beyond repair, or voting "present" and letting Obama destroy the country, perhaps beyond repair.

I am sending a link to this article to Newt's web site and telling him as a donor that I think he needs to back out and endorse Rick. And I will be sending Rick's web site the link and telling him he desperately needs to cut a deal with Newt, up to and including offering him the presidency if it goes to a contested convention, knowing that Rick could step into 8 years as President himself after being Newt's V.P.

Neither Newt nor Rick have ANY path to the presidency without each other's help at this point. They have a choice, cut a deal now and possibly win the nomination, or keep holding out for everything and likely end up losing everything in the end.

Do not think that all the Newt votes will go to Santorum. THEY WILL NOT!!!

Did you even read the article? It's premised on 56% of Newt's votes going to Rick. I think if Rick announced Newt as his V.P., who he has said at least twice before he would consider, then I think Rick could get far more of Newt's votes than that.

Here is how many delegates go with each of the article's categories. Newt is endangering over 70% of them by staying in the race:

Gingrich's Presence Will Help Romney: 707

Gingrich's Presence Will Likely Help Romney: 231

Gingrich's Presence will Hurt Romney: 238

Not mentioned: 134 (Missouri, Puerto Rico, D.C., Utah)

I’ve commented on Newt’s character before and just don’t want to get banned, so I can’t debate the full extent of Newt’s character, so I’m going to let that pass, as I’m hamstrung by Free Republic’s rules from discussing the character of Newt Gingrich openly and freely.

Uh hunh.

Let it suffice to say that your arguments haven’t worked. In Mississippi, 20% of voters said that a candidate having strong moral character was the most important factor and they voted 65-8% or 13-1.6% And that percent is consistent in every primary and you guys can argue about it all you want but Newt is handicapped from winning those voters.

Not surprising. There is always a certain percentage of the population willing to allow themselves to be snookered by big-government "compassionate" conservatives who loudly thump their chests about how moral they are, while voting to expand government and destroy individuals and the family. These same voters are the people who supported Pardoning Mike Huckabee back in 2008.

You’re cherry picking vote to form a narrative that’s simply not true. During 12 years in the Senate, Santorum received 7 grades of A from the National Taxpayers Union during 12 years in the Senate along with 3 B+ and 2Bs, he’s received strong ratings from the American Conservative Union and Citizens Against Government Waste.

Actually, you have it backwards.

See - the grades you cite are the ones I used to cite myself a few weeks ago when I was (briefly) warming up to Santorum, and was defending him both here and on Ace of Spades HQ. Then I actually sat down and started thinking about it, and realised that citing these was not actually a very good or honest argument for Santorum.

It's actually relatively easy to get a good grade from these groups, and nevertheless build up an aggregatively bad voting record, so long as the bad votes are spread out evenly enough that they never impact one particular year's grade. Santorum was in public office for 16 years. One can earn a whole decade's worth of B+ grades from the NTU and still have a terribly big-government voting record over the course of it all.

Besides, as is becoming depressingly typical for Santorum supporters, you didn't actually address the FACT of Santorum's many, many, many bad votes - you merely tried to distract attention from them. Patton@Bastogne posted an excellent list detailing Santorum's immoral voting record. These are on the record, whether you like it or not.

Newt’s speakership was a wasted opportunity. After the government shutdown, he timidly gave in to demand after demand from President Clinton, broke spending caps, and counted on the Lewinsky scandal to deliver Republican gains. He was forced out by conservatives after four years because he could not have been re-elected Speaker. There was a conservative rebellion against him in 1997. Gingrich is a great revolutionary, but lousy at actually implementing anything.

Nice bit of revisionist history there. Nevertheless, the *actual* facts are that Newt delivered on the Contract for America, he delivered on welfare reform, he delivered on capital gains tax cuts and other tax reforms, and he delivered on a balanced budget. He did this, in large part, AFTER the 1995 government shut down, and did it by forcing a hostile Democrat President to accept them.

Notably, Rick Santorum has NO SUCH RECORD of conservative leadership like this. All Santorum has is a long string of votes to increase government size and extent.

Newt left the Speakership because of a "coup" by Reps. Boehner, Paxon, Armey, and DeLay - who revolted specifically because Newt was TOO conservative, and wasn't playing the "go along to get along" game with the Democrats.

This is from Stephen Luftschein of the gingrich campaign. I know Stephen a little, and he is a good guy. what he writes about here is basically Romney in the coming weeks. I think he may be onto something because I saw an article today that romney has started laying of staff...

anyway... may it be a balm to those who need it...

Dear Newt Volunteers,

Let me first give you some straight facts about today/tonight and Alabama and Mississippi. Newt was shooting for wins, so clearly, it is disappointing, but in terms of all important delegates, the difference between first by a couple of points and second by a couple of points is very small indeed (as of this writing the exact numbers are still not in).

Romney finished third in both states in what was a very good night for Santorum.

But here is what is being missed. Paul Begala hinted at it tonight on CNN. Many of you have heard me on our statewide calls and in private conversations discussing why Romney comes across the way he does, why he stutters, and seems to be constantly scanning the audience to gauge the crowd reaction before moving to his next point.

It is because of his training as an investor. It is the same reason why an investor is not qualified to be President, as opposed to a businessman/entrepreneur. Investors gauge markets. They judge situations and adjust on the fly to find the best investment. This is why Romney appears to have no central idea, because he is gauging the “market” of his particular audience. In front of a crowd, testing his “Investment” to see if the crowd is buying the product.

An entrepreneur, or great political candidate, is driven by an idea. He/She has a goal, and will move toward that goal despite any obstacles placed in their way.

Well, it is not surprising that much of Romney’s “insider” support comes from individuals and businesses with similar backgrounds and ideas. This is not to denigrate investment, but a simple analysis of a thought process.

It is why we see so many of the same large donors on both sides of the aisle. Investors hedge their bets. Entrepreneurs/ Idea people do not. They go all in. They see an end result and move inexorably toward it.

What happened tonight is critical to this mindset.

What will begin to happen is that support will begin to flea Romney. His “investors” have to now begin to hedge their bets. They are right now gauging the market, i.e. GOP voters, and realizing that they may need a better investment.

Remember, most of his campaign has been built on the “inevitability” factor. That factor is now gone. It has been leaking air for some time, but tonight that bubble was fully burst. And when you build your campaign not on ideas, but on an “electability factor” and the voters deny you that factor, what is left?

More importantly, what is left for that “insider” or “establishment” support that are not the professional GOP class? They begin to look elsewhere. They need to maximize their investments. It is why Romney’s finances are beginning to become tighter and he is struggling to continue to raise the kind of money he has for the last few years.

On a practical level, what this means is that for Romney, the “easy pickings” are gone. He is losing his ability to grossly outspend Newt and the other candidates to the level that he did in Florida, for example. More importantly, he will begin to lose voting support.

As usual, the media will be slow to pick up on this. But look for, in the days and weeks ahead, Romney’s national numbers, and then his individual state numbers, to start taking their first real hit. And how can you tell Romney is becoming increasingly desperate and realizes this himself? One only has to look at his comments today about Santorum being at the desperate end of his campaign.

This is where Newt gets it right. As I mentioned above, it is the difference between an entrepreneur/idea man, and an investor. Romney invested in the idea of being President but has never been driven with a dream of what the country SHOULD look like, or COULD look like under his administration. (Reagan drove to the nomination despite many state losses because he never lost sight of that goal, the BIG idea.)

Newt, on the other hand, has spent his entire career doing JUST that. Looking ahead 2 DECADES and imagining a Republican majority in the House, for example. He did it before.

Getting back to the practical level, as Romney bleeds support, are those voters likely to coalesce around Santorum, a candidate who manages to frequently alienate exactly those who might support him? Or to Newt, who keeps presenting the big ideas, and even more, from his position as candidate, is ALREADY driving the national conversation? I think you know my answer to that question.

I admit, I was down earlier this evening. But after looking at things carefully, I feel much better.

And what was it that Paul Begala said tonight on CNN? “...It is time for Mitt Romney to get out of the race.” It was not much earlier than this that he dropped out 4 years ago. It was just after super Tuesday when front runner John McCain already had more than 700 delegates (an important # as Romney has no where near that now)

There are alot of states yet to go, N.C., W. Virginia.....Louisiana, Texas...and many more ...A Commander never leaves the field....Here’s looking forward to a Newt Presidency !

Stephen
Newt 2012

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